A Castastrophic Game of Charades
by Melissa2
Summary: The crew tries to play a game of charades, but everything seems to go wrong. Third in the Games Series.


Title: A Catastrophic Game of Charades  
Series: The game series, first two being An Innocent Game of Cards and A Not-So-Innocent Game of Truth or Dare  
Author: Melissa, aka ILH  
Censor: PG-13   
Content Warnings: A bit of language here and there  
Central Characters: Almost everyone has at least several lines  
Spoilers: None really  
Author's Note: This isn't as funny as the previous two stories (it does have its moments, though I think) but don't worry...the next in the series will be.  
Disclaimer: Andromeda's characters and the like belong to Tribune, not me.   
  
  
  
"Our morale has been down considerably lately. We need to bond as a crew," Dylan explained to all of Andromeda's crew, which were seated in his quarters. They had just finished having a casual discussion about Andromeda's flight plan and vacation time. "Any suggestions?"  
  
"Another game!" Trance said eagerly. She had been suggesting another game since truth or dare, even though that hadn't been enjoyable for all the crew.  
  
"I strongly disagree with that approach," Tyr said.  
  
"I'm not particularly fond of it, either," Beka agreed.  
  
Harper was hestistant. "What if we play a family game, y'know the kind that doesn't include dresses, little teapots and me making myself look like an ass?"   
  
"What do you have in mind, Harper?" Rommie asked.  
  
"What about...charades?" Harper suggested.  
  
"Charades?" Dylan asked.  
  
"See, we each put three different pieces of paper with two or three word phrases on them in a box. Then, a person chooses one of them and has to act out what it says without saying anything. Everyone guesses it then. The person that guesses correctly gets to go next. But the person that made it up can't guess for their own phrase," Harper explained.  
  
"I think I get it," Trance said.  
  
"It sounds harmless enough," Beka admitted.  
  
"I don't want to participate," Tyr said.  
  
"It proves superiority, Tyr. Whoever wins the most is superior," Harper tempted him.  
  
"Improving morale is something we have to do together, Tyr," Dylan insisted. "Wouldn't we bond better if there were teams, though?"  
  
"You can play with two teams. But we have an uneven number of people," Harper said.  
  
"I have no desire to compete. I will record the scores," Rev offered.  
  
"Then, we're gonna need two bowls of choices. One made by one team and one made by the other team. Then, we pick from the other team's bowl," Harper said, picking up two bowls that had held chips and popcorn during the previous conversation.  
  
Eventually they all, with the exception of Tyr, agreed that the game sounded innocent enough.  
  
"How are we going to divide into teams?" Rommie asked.  
  
"What about...guys against girls?" Harper asked.  
  
"Nah. Wouldn't be fair. Why don't we choose captains and pick teams?" Beka asked.  
  
"We already have two captains," Trance pointed out, looking to Beka and Dylan.  
  
Beka paused for a moment. "Sounds good to me. What about you, Dylan? I'll let you pick first."  
  
Dylan nodded. "Rommie."  
  
"Let's see...Trance," Beka chose.  
  
"Tyr," Dylan said.  
  
"And that leaves us stuck with you, Harper," Beka said with a smile.  
  
"No one wants the freakin' genius. They don't know what they're missing," Harper said.  
  
The teams rearranged Dylan's furniture into to separated clusters. One had three chairs in it, and the other had a couch. They spent a few minutes writing up the phrases to be selected from and placed them in the bowls.  
  
"I think we're ready. Since Dylan got to pick first, we get to go first," Harper said.  
  
"I'll go up there first!" Trance said enthusiastically.  
  
"Be my guest," Beka said, gesturing at the cleared area in front of the teams.  
  
"Oh! By the way, do you want this to be timed or not?" Harper asked.  
  
"Do you mean that the person up there has a limited amount of time to work with?" Dylan asked.  
  
"Yeah. Like two minutes or whatever," Harper replied.  
  
"Two minutes sounds fine to me. What about you, Beka?"  
  
Beka glanced from Harper to Dylan and shrugged. "Okay."  
  
Trance hopped up and grabbed one of the folded pieces of paper from her team's bowl. She opened it and read it. "Hmmmmm....when does the timing start?"  
  
"When you start acting it out," Harper said.  
  
Trance stood still for several seconds, looking thoughtful. "Okay, I'm ready."  
  
She took a step back, avoiding the table behind her.  
  
"Back!" Harper guessed.   
  
"I haven't started yet." Trance said.  
  
"Don't talk, Trance, or we automatically lose!" Harper warned.  
  
"You have already forfeited your turn," Tyr said.  
  
"She hasn't played before, Tyr. Give her a minute to get into the game," Beka said.  
  
"None of us have played before, with the exception of you, boy." Tyr looked at Harper. "How do we even know this is really a game and not something you are creating?"  
  
"Why in the hell would I do that? It makes absolutely no sense!" Harper said.  
  
"For your own personal gain," Tyr said.  
  
"Let's see. Rommie's still got all her clothes on. I'm still sitting here just like I was five minutes ago before we started this game. I see no 'personal gain' in this, Tyr."  
  
"Several references to charades are in my archives," Rommie said, ignoring Harper's previous comment about her. "And what Harper has said is accurate according to my information."  
  
"Let's just forget about what happened now and get on with the game," Dylan said, annoyed.  
  
Trance waited until everyone was silent and then pointed at the center of her leg.   
  
"Leg!" Harper guessed.  
  
Trance shook her head no.  
  
"Thigh!" Harper guessed.  
  
Trance moved her hand, gesturing emphatically at her knee.  
  
"Shin?" Harper guessed.  
  
"Knee," Beka finally said.  
  
Trance nodded her head yes before looking thoughtful again. She smiled and pointed at Tyr.  
  
"Tree. Rhymes with knee," Harper said to Beka.  
  
"Nietzchean," Beka said.  
  
"That's right!" Trance said happily.  
  
"She didn't act out the word! She pointed at me!" Tyr said angrily.  
  
"It doesn't matter, Tyr," Dylan said. "Winning isn't why we're doing this."  
  
"It's not why YOU'RE doing this," Tyr said, narrowing his eyes at Dylan.  
  
"It's our turn. Who wants to go first?" Rommie intervened.  
  
"You can go first, Rommie," Dylan said.  
  
Rommie pulled a piece of paper from the bowl and cocked her head as she read it. Her eyes closed, and everyone could tell she was accessing something from her archives. The second her eyes opened, she glared at Harper.  
  
"This is obscene, Harper!" Rommie exclaimed.  
  
A bolt of electricity hit Harper as Rommie completed her statement. "Hey, I was just speaking the truth!"  
  
Dylan stood and read the paper over Rommie's shoulder. "Harper!"  
  
Harper hurried over to the other team's bowl and began digging through it.  
  
"What are you going, boy?" Tyr asked, starting to get up.  
  
"I'm just keeping Rom-doll here from seeing what else I wrote," Harper said, fratically throwing the pieces of paper down one by one after he looked at them.  
  
Tyr pushed him out of the way and started reading through the discarded slips. Rommie grabbed the bowl and started reading those.  
  
"Talk about cheating!" Beka said. "We're going to have to do this all over again!"  
  
"Harper, this is even more obscene than the other one!" Rommie glared at him on the floor.  
  
Another bolt of electricity zapped him. "Ow! It was just a joke, Rom-doll!"  
  
"No one dares insult me like this!" Tyr roared.  
  
Harper hopped up and began running. "Help me!"  
  
Rommie zapped him again. "There's a lot more help where that came from, Harper."  
  
"Everyone, stop this now!" Dylan yelled.  
  
Beka and Trance exchanged glances, not moving.  
  
Tyr continued chasing Harper, and Rommie continued zapping him with bolts of electricity every few seconds.  
  
"Rommie, I am your Captain! Stop it now!" Dylan grabbed her by her shoulders.  
  
The bolts of electricity stopped, leaving Harper only running from Tyr.  
  
"Tyr!" Dylan warned.  
  
Tyr finally caught Harper and picked him up by the collar of his shirt. Tyr's bonespurs were to Harper's neck, and Tyr released a low, threatening growl. He dropped Harper and stormed out of Dylan's quarters.  
  
"My avatar needs to be recharged," Rommie stated.  
  
"You can go, Rommie," Dylan said.  
  
"Where did Rev go?" Trance asked, yawning.  
  
"He must have slipped out during the commotion. I don't blame him," Beka said.  
  
Trance yawned again and leaned her head on her hand.  
  
"Trance, are you feeling all right?" Beka asked.  
  
"I'm just a little bit tired, that's all," Trance replied.  
  
"It's getting late. Go to bed, Trance," Beka said.  
  
Trance walked to the door of Dylan's quarters. "Good night."  
  
"Night Trance," Harper said, moving to hide his discomfort. "Ummmmm nature's calling, actually nature's screaming with an industrial sized megaphone. Can I-"  
  
"Go ahead, Harper. But I want to talk to you in the morning," Dylan said.  
  
"'Kay, Boss." Harper ran out of Dylan's quarters.  
  
Several seconds after Harper's exit, Beka was the first to speak. "So much for a nice crew-bonding game of charades, huh?"  
  
"We might have had some actual bonding if the entire team had gone over everyone's phrases before we played," Dylan said.  
  
"You know Harper...he probably would have snuck them into the bowl, even if we did go over them before," Beka said.  
  
"I'll try to find some bonding activities myself. I never had to do this with a crew of four thousand, but with a crew of six..."  
  
Beka stood and sat by Dylan on the couch. "And I know they're not what you're used to. We're nothing even close to High Guard officers."  
  
"You all do make life a lot less predictable."  
  
A moment of silence passed. "So, what are you going to do to Harper for whatever that was he wrote about Rommie and Tyr?"  
  
Dylan smirked. "Revenge in the form of a game, of course." 


End file.
